Five years ago, on the occasion of the magazine’s 25th anniversary, HRE asked me to write about the changes I’d seen during those 25 years, and to suggest what they might mean to HR leaders in the future. I wrote about some of the many challenges faced by the
profession during those 25 years, such
as the constant struggle to find the right
talent, new HRM technologies, work/
life balance issues, compensation and
benefit design, managing across borders,
outsourcing, insourcing, everchanging
legal and regulatory requirements, and
changes in board governance.

But I concluded then, and still
believe, that while the strategies and
tactics HR professionals use to address
and leverage these issues over time
may be different, the challenge to the
profession as it looks to the future will
always be the same: how to help people
and organizations survive and thrive in
an environment of constant change.

Now, since it’s HRE’s 30th
anniversary, it’s time for an update.
While I still firmly believe that this core
challenge remains, what are some of
the changes that have occurred in the
last five years, and what could it mean
for HR leaders going for ward?

Globally, nationalistic movements
are growing. Pollsters were surprised
by the United Kingdom’s vote to exit

BY SUSAN MEISINGER • HR Leadership Columnist

the European Community and by the
outcome of the presidential election
stateside. Europe’s migrant crisis,
with Syria being torn apart and other
Middle Eastern countries in turmoil,
has created greater resistance to
immigration. While Putin has increased
his hold in Russia, annexed Crimea and
created a crisis in the Ukraine, North
Korea’s leader has continued to rattle
his nuclear sabers. Meanwhile, China’s
growth slowed, and the economies
of South American countries such as
Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil moved
into negative growth territory.

For HR executives, the global
environment requires a focus on,
and management of, an increasingly
complex (and expensive) reassignment
of workers across borders. Not only
will nations be tightening border
controls and immigration policies, but
workers may be less willing to move to
areas of the globe that seem unstable.
For global companies, this means an
even greater investment in growing
and developing local talent. While
that’s already the trend, it will become
even more important.

And the importance of not onlyfinding talent, but keeping talent, willbecome even more central to HR’s rolein the future. Over the past five years,the economy has continued to improve;in January 2012, the unemploymentrate was 8. 3 percent; this January, itwas 4. 7 percent. HR executives willhave to become even more proficientin finding and keeping the talent theyneed for their organizations.

And with lower unemployment,pressure will grow to increase wages,which have been relatively stagnantduring the past five years, whenadjusted for inflation—while, during thesame time, the stock market and someCEO compensation have climbed. ;In the domestic public-policy arena,one of the most publicly discussed—anddebated—HR-related changes during thepast five years was the Affordable CareAct and its implementation. The bulk ofits provisions, taxes and programs wererolled out in 2013 and 2014, with othersnot scheduled to roll out until 2022.Advocates cheered the fact that millionsof people who were previously uninsuredwere now covered; opponents lamentedthe added costs and unsustainability ofthe law as drafted.

While there has been little federal
labor and employment legislation enacted
during the same period, new regulatory
initiatives were launched, designed to
provide greater worker protections,
with additional burdens imposed on
employers. These include higher salary
requirements for workers considered
exempt from being paid for overtime;
permitting smaller bargaining units;
providing for expedited representation
elections; promulgating an expanded
definition—with attendant liabilities—of
joint employment; new requirements
for those providing investment advice
to retirement-plan participants, with a
fiduciary standard of care under the
Employee Retirement Income Security
Act; and a revised EEO-1 form to collect
pay data from employers with 100 or
more employees, to name a few.

And then we had an election, with anew president taking office. He’s nowmoving to keep his promise to “repealand replace” the Affordable Care Act,and has already begun to block ordelay many of the worker protectionsput in place by the last administration.

What does this mean for HR
executives? HR will be caught in the
middle of a pendulum swing in public
policy, and will have to monitor and be
prepared to react to wherever the policy
pendulum lands on a wide assortment
of issues. This includes ensuring that
their organizations are mindful and
aware of these changes while devising
business strategies. And, of course, they
must do so while being aware of the
state and local governments that may
adopt some of the worker protections
the new administration blocks.

In the HR technology arena, HR-related technology has continued with
its march for ward. No one is discussing
moving to the cloud anymore—we’re
already there. But as HCM vendors
continue to gobble each other up, HR
professionals will have to continue to
monitor developments, keeping up on
where productivity enhancing tools
for the HR team might come from,
and understanding the implications of
those enhancements. My colleague,
Steve Boese, has already identified
some current trends in HR-systems
development and design, and what HR
leaders should consider when assessing
HR-tech solutions, in his “Inside HR
Tech” column.

But our move to the cloud and the
growth of the Internet of Things have
created a mounting challenge for the
business community and HR executives,
and it’s one that will likely continue:;how
to ensure the security of business—and
employee—information. As Wikileaks
has shown us with its release of a trove
of alleged CIA-hacking documents,
confidentiality of information may be a
thing of the past.

In the coming years, this ongoing
threat to information security will require
continued diligence by HR executives as
they work to maintain the confidentiality
of employees’ personal information. But
it also provides an incentive to develop
a culture of transparency, in which
business strategy and information is
shared in ways that increase employee
engagement and trust.

These are just some of the future
challenges I believe the HR profession
will face. And I believe the profession is
up to the challenge.

Susan R.

Meisinger, formerpresident and CEOof the Society forHuman ResourceManagement, isan author, speakerand consultant onhuman resourcemanagement. She is on the board ofdirectors of the National Academy ofHuman Resources. Send questions orcomments to hreletters@lrp.com.

Caught in
the Middle

With a swiftly changing business environment,
HR executives need to remember their role in
helping people and organizations survive and
thrive despite disruptions.